AbstractIn a series of four experiments, we examined the relationship between male dominance and female preference in Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica. Female quail that had watched an aggressive interaction between a pair of males preferred the loser of an encounter to its winner. This superficially perverse female preference for losers may be explained by the strong correlation between the success of a male in aggressive interactions with other males and the frequency with which he engages in courtship behaviours that appear potentially injurious to females. By choosing to affiliate with less dominant male quail, female quail may lose direct and indirect benefits that would accrue from pairing with dominant males. However, they also avoid the cost of interacting with potentially harmful, more aggressive males.

AbstractIn a series of four experiments, we examined the relationship between male dominance and female preference in Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica. Female quail that had watched an aggressive interaction between a pair of males preferred the loser of an encounter to its winner. This superficially perverse female preference for losers may be explained by the strong correlation between the success of a male in aggressive interactions with other males and the frequency with which he engages in courtship behaviours that appear potentially injurious to females. By choosing to affiliate with less dominant male quail, female quail may lose direct and indirect benefits that would accrue from pairing with dominant males. However, they also avoid the cost of interacting with potentially harmful, more aggressive males.

Oh hell yeah... that and primate research that shows that females of various primate species will frequently not only take the opportunity to slip away and mate with a preferred low-aggression male while the high-aggression males are fighting over her, but that they will, when being pursued by a big aggressive male they aren't interested in, often lead him past, and flirt with, other aggressive males for the sole purpose of getting him off her back so she can go mate with a less-aggressive male. Probably unsurprisingly, the males that seem to be most preferred are the ones who spend the least time fighting and the most time grooming other primates.

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“I’m guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk,” Charles Wick said. “It was very complicated.”

AbstractIn a series of four experiments, we examined the relationship between male dominance and female preference in Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica. Female quail that had watched an aggressive interaction between a pair of males preferred the loser of an encounter to its winner. This superficially perverse female preference for losers may be explained by the strong correlation between the success of a male in aggressive interactions with other males and the frequency with which he engages in courtship behaviours that appear potentially injurious to females. By choosing to affiliate with less dominant male quail, female quail may lose direct and indirect benefits that would accrue from pairing with dominant males. However, they also avoid the cost of interacting with potentially harmful, more aggressive males.

Oh hell yeah... that and primate research that shows that females of various primate species will frequently not only take the opportunity to slip away and mate with a preferred low-aggression male while the high-aggression males are fighting over her, but that they will, when being pursued by a big aggressive male they aren't interested in, often lead him past, and flirt with, other aggressive males for the sole purpose of getting him off her back so she can go mate with a less-aggressive male. Probably unsurprisingly, the males that seem to be most preferred are the ones who spend the least time fighting and the most time grooming other primates.

AbstractIn a series of four experiments, we examined the relationship between male dominance and female preference in Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica. Female quail that had watched an aggressive interaction between a pair of males preferred the loser of an encounter to its winner. This superficially perverse female preference for losers may be explained by the strong correlation between the success of a male in aggressive interactions with other males and the frequency with which he engages in courtship behaviours that appear potentially injurious to females. By choosing to affiliate with less dominant male quail, female quail may lose direct and indirect benefits that would accrue from pairing with dominant males. However, they also avoid the cost of interacting with potentially harmful, more aggressive males.

Oh hell yeah... that and primate research that shows that females of various primate species will frequently not only take the opportunity to slip away and mate with a preferred low-aggression male while the high-aggression males are fighting over her, but that they will, when being pursued by a big aggressive male they aren't interested in, often lead him past, and flirt with, other aggressive males for the sole purpose of getting him off her back so she can go mate with a less-aggressive male. Probably unsurprisingly, the males that seem to be most preferred are the ones who spend the least time fighting and the most time grooming other primates.

there is a hypothesis amongst cat lovers that the temperament of black kitties, (being generally considered more mellow and less stressed by overcrowding) that goes a bit like this

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Black and blotched tabby colours are possibly linked to a less assertive temperament, more placid character and better tolerance of crowding than striped tabby or agouti (ticked). If true, this factor would have contributed to a more sociable cat both with humans and with other cats in a colony situation. The predominance of black/black-and-white in urban environments might therefore be linked to this greater sociability. A stressed cat breeds less successfully and passes its genes on fewer times. A stressed mother may miscarry or kill her kittens. A cat which is less stressed in a colony situation will pass its genes on more often. Soon, there will be more of the cats showing a coat colour linked to sociability and less of the cats showing a coat colour linked to unsociability. In the rural environment, a better camouflaged striped cat is likely to be a more successful hunter and will therefore breed more successfully than a less well camouflaged cat. Natoli & DeVito (2001) theorised that orange cats (stereotyped as more highly strung) are uncommon in high-density urban feral colonies compared to "easy-going" black or black-and-white cats. One suggestion is that the more easy-going cats wait their turn to mate with the females: they haven't wasted time and energy fighting and by the time it is their turn, the earlier matings have stimulated the female to ovulate ... just in time to be fertilised by her later suitors' sperm. The actual colours found in these populations would likely depend more on the founder effect.

The Atretochoana eiselti is a backward bastard. One day on its evolutionary journey, it thought, "fuck lungs" and got rid of them and finds gills to be immature. It said "nope" to nostrils and "screw that" to limbs. It now thinks eyes are a terrible idea.

It probably thinks all nose all the time, assuming it didn't get rid of its brain on the way.

The Atretochoana eiselti is a backward bastard. One day on its evolutionary journey, it thought, "fuck lungs" and got rid of them and finds gills to be immature. It said "nope" to nostrils and "screw that" to limbs. It now thinks eyes are a terrible idea.

It probably thinks all nose all the time, assuming it didn't get rid of its brain on the way.